Bryston BDA-1 DAC, any thoughts?

I use the Empirical Audio Offramp to convert USB to SPDIF.

Cerrot, I think it's a meaningful upgrade from the Benchmark. It's not as good as the Berkeley (which I have only auditioned in other systems) but I don't have an opinion on whether the Berkeley is worth the price difference. However, if you are mainly doing computer audio and you are planning to do USB or Firewire, I would probably skip both of these DACs and go with something that is optimized for those interfaces, such as the Ayre ,Weiss, Wavelength, Sonic Studio or Metric Halo products.

in the last 2 years I have had these DACs

PS Audio DL3

Benchmark USB DAC1

MHDT Labs Havana (stellar, btw)

Musical Fidelity TriVista

Bel Canto DacIII

Tube Audio Design PreDAC

Berkeley Alpha

Bryston BDA-1 (current and future)

I tested the Bryston and Berkeley at the same time, and I did think the Berkeley was all around a little better, more extended, extremely rich, but the Bryston was bit warmer, and the Berkley did not justify, in any way the extra cost. I couldn't be happier with the Bryston, it's great.

Give the PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC a listen. I love mine.

So the Bryston has no volume control of any kind, with or without the remote?

The BDA-1 is not a preamp(it's just a great dac)I use to own
a Benchmark Dac-1,it is a dac and pre in one,you could connect it direct to an amp.